All Rise...

The Charge

Santo, the idol of millions, is the friend of children!

Opening Statement

It seems like all cultures have at least one of them. Japan has about fifty.
Gamera, Godzilla, Ultraman, Mothra, and a bevy of zipper backed beasts and
badasses seem to make up a far more important national element in their social
order than government or the way of the samurai. The Russians, not well known
for their non-State sponsored iconography, have such bizarro communal figures as
the Frog Princess, Finist the Bright Falcon, and a stupid Little Round Bun who
can't manage to get far enough away from Aesop's fables to avoid being eaten by
a fox. But no one is probably more closely linked with his nation in total, from
his onscreen persona to his off screen life, than El Santo, the superman
wrestler media celebrity darling that rules Mexico and most of Latin America
with a barrel chest, an iron will, and a silver mask. Scientist, athlete,
defender of the poor, and prickly pear to the rich, our crime fighting grappler
is so beloved and legendary in his home territory that upon his death in 1984,
he was buried in his trademark sequined face case. Santo appeared in dozens of
movies during his career, and thanks to Rise Above Entertainment, we now have a
chance to view a few of them remastered and restored. And lest you think our
chokehold champion only battles thieves and marauders, the two discs here show
that, most of the time, Santo like his enemies on the ethereal side. So be
prepared to witness the supernatural side of Santo as he battles Frankenstein's
matronly daughter and a really dull "Count Alucard" in Santo Contra
la Hija de Frankenstein and Santo en el Tesoro de Dracula.

Facts of the Case

Santo Contra la Hija de Frankenstein (Color, 1971): Apparently,
unbeknownst to the majority of the scientific community worldwide, Dr.
Frankenstein: (a) did exist, (b) did create a hulky man-beast,
(c) was not gay with his lab assistant, (d) procreated with an apparent
bride of Frankenstein—no, not that one, and (e) had a
daughter who grew up to speak Spanish and invent a youth serum. Even
today, the biological and chemical community is still flummoxed to learn that
freaky Freda F. (a) has keep herself alive for decades with a blood based Botox
while letting her Daddy die, (b) has created her own mutant male mound called
Ursus and mixed a man with a monkey and called it Truxon, and (c) is now
wandering Central America with her equally injected interns looking for the
right wrestler marrow to make her fountain of friskiness more potent. And guess
who has the right combination claret for our unstuck in time temptress?

Santo is wrestling for the Middle Weight Championship when his main squeeze,
Norma, is kidnapped by Ms. Frankenstein. It's all part of an elaborate plot to
lure the hulky he-man to the mad madam's secret underground lair. Santo and
Norma's sister, Elsa, head out to the remote village where the mad scientessa
keeps her experimental jet set, trash and no star. Santo and Elsa break in.
Santo fights Truxon and defeats him. Norma escapes and is recaptured. Elsa then
escapes and is then recaptured. Norma is hypnotized to gouge out Santo's eyes.
Santo figures out a way to un-Kreskin her and he battles Ursus. They reach a
kind of draw and our hero helps the girls get away. After all three escape,
Santo returns to destroy the lab. Norma and Elsa are then recaptured again.
During a fight Santo wounds Ursus. Later, he helps mend the gaping hole in the
monster's chest, and just like the story of Hercules and the lion, the oversized
set of skin grafts takes a shine to the masked man. He helps Santo defeat Dr.
Frankenstein and gets a face full of sulfuric acid for his troubles. Santo and
the girls escape yet again through a secret tunnel and the lifework of Mary
Shelley's illegitimate literary offspring blows up rather unceremoniously. The
End.

Santo en el Tesoro de Dracula (B&W, 1969): Santo, that scientific
wunderkind, has just invented the Time Tunnel, or to better avoid Irwin Allen
and his Lost in Space paid lawyers, he created El Orificio del Tiempo. He needs
a female volunteer to try out his weird way back machine, and it just so happens
his new girlfriend, Luisa, is genetically shapely enough to do the trick. After
some rote explanation about how adult women respond better to temporal
displacement than men (maybe that explains why they're never on time…),
Luisa dresses up in some of Judy Jetson's hand-me-downs and enters the epoch
mover. She is sent back to the most cosmically important, scientifically
significant era in all of time: the month when Dracula, in the guise of Count
Alucard (what a norom!) came to the Americas to try Tex-Mex neck cuisine. Via
closed circuit space-time continuum-cam we witness Luisa as she is bitten on the
neck by the suave, vague Count and joins his unholy harem of undead debs.

All the while, Santo's arch-nemesis, the reverse KKK member Black Hood, is
spying on our squared circle impresario and plotting some manner of deviant
behavior. When our picture within a plot hole reveals that Dracula has a
treasure that he plans to give to Luisa once he's finished doing the forbidden
dance on her jugular vein, Old Hoody has his ploy and Santo has his cue to bring
his wench back from the past to the future which is really the
present…umm. Anyway, Santo and his gang go over to Count Backwards' crypt
and swipe a medallion that is supposed to indicate the bat booty's whereabouts.
But they forget the enchanted ring and before you can say "third act
conflict," Blackie and his band of boobs has the finger bling in their
possession. They then all agree to a really weird wager between Santo and BH's
son, Atlas. Whoever wins the big wrestling match will get the decoder
accessories. Well, Santo wins, Hood forks over the ring and then unleashes
Cradula or Ludacra or whatever name the bloodsucker is going by today. He
captures Luisa, Santo gives chase, and there is a final showdown between the
wrestling hero, the hapless vampire, and the sunrise. Guess who wins in the
end?

The Evidence

The best way to approach a review of any or all of the El Santo movies is to
understand that, like the Godzilla compositions, the Gamera oeuvre, or the
thousands of anime titles that make their way across the Pacific and into
fanboys' basement concrete block bookshelves, it is a complete and utter rarity
to see any of them in their original, non-matineed or creature featured form.
Dissected, bifurcated, shaken, and baked across the four corners of the globe,
these fast food filmic titles were modified to fit markets, mentality, and
commercial time frames. Add on top the usually atrocious dubbing, which traded
on comedy and kitsch instead of true crime or horror, and the randomized jump
cutting, and most Santo style foreign fantasy films become exercises in juvenile
babysitting. So the chance to see these films in their original Spanish and as
intact as can be expected is a plus right at the start.

But then, once we have the best possible version of the movie before us, we
are stuck with what is actually on screen. That is the risk with any film
considered a "cult" classic or "forgotten" gem. In someone's
mind, the restored retardation of a giant turtle battling a bat faced oversized
monkey man may seem like bona fide bemusement. To others who fall outside the
freaky faction who finds such mad movies a must see, these experiments in poor
plotting, worse special effects, and static acting will either result in a
request for a membership card in the crazy club or an immediate restraining
order on anyone and everyone entertained.

So you will probably have to make up your own mind about Mexico's main man.
Granted, in general, the Santo films are an incredible goof. Here is the story
of a superhero wrestler who basically uses pre-school WWF moves to battle all
manner of evil supernatural and organized criminal elements. He is so smart that
he invents hyper-technical machinery, and yet he seems easily hoodwinked by Bob
Hope and Bing Crosby style adversarial ambushes. He never takes off the mask,
nor does he allow himself to be photographed without it on. So that adds another
layer of incredible ridiculousness to movies that are already loaded to the
lechon with rubber bats, fake cavern sets, and silly putty makeup effects. Just
seeing Santo speak to the police and having them take this masked mystery man
seriously, nay reverentially, is worth the price of admission alone. However,
just because Santo himself is a kick doesn't mean both of these movies are. Frankenstein is a kaleidoscope of
colorful camp with wonderfully over-the-top acting, incredibly lame monsters,
and more coincidental escapes and captures than six normal movies should have.
It is funny, fresh, and frightfully funky. Dracula is 180 degrees the
opposite. Struck from an old, scratched up de-colorized black and white disaster
of a print, the two-fold story line only guarantees that we will be twice as
bored. And since wrestling is what Santo is all about, it's sad to see him only
wrestle once in this film, and it's a pretty boring match one hour into
the sagging story. Every point that Frankenstein's offspring scores in her
favor, Dracula literally sucks the life and fun out of.

Santo Contra la Hija de Frankenstein: If someone had to begin their
exploration of the entire El Santo mythology with one movie, Santo vs.
Frankenstein's Daughter would be a good place to start. Bright and colorful,
a little bloody, as campy as all of Montana, and filled with lots of Santo brand
flying drop and scissor kicks, this is the best of the two discs reviewed here.
It is also a great introduction to the world of El Santo, since it outlines the
basic principles that apply to this superhuman wrestling hero. Santo is seen
(and described) as impervious to pain, made up of special, near immortal blood
cells, and so just and moral as to make Jesus seem miscreant. He is the hero to
a nation, the friend of children, and the champion of the poor and downtrodden.
Oh yeah, and he wrestles pretty well too. The idea of mixing in-ring roundhouses
with corpse reanimation and mad scientology is a crazy, creative combination.
And since all the elements gel together here rather well, it's not all that
important that at any and all opportunities, our three main leads are
practically leaping back into the lap of capture. Anything to keep the plot from
moving away from Frau Frankenstein and her unintentionally hilarious house of
frights.

When one hears about the basics of an El Santo film, Frankenstein is
the kind of movie they envision. There is lots of good wrestling material (Santo
really earns his paycheck on the canvas battlefield) and the monster movie
machinations are all in place. About the only area where the movie misfires is
in the whole "youth serum" scheme. Our main menace injects several
elderly villagers with her special sauce and then…nothing happens. We
never witness them change or mutate or whatnot. Sure, we hear their blue murder
moans as the elixir boils their blood, but the whole issue just seems like a
ruse, a subplot excuse to involve Santo and have some mummified bodies around.
The big attraction here is old El battling the monsters, and these fights are
classic bits of stuntman silliness.

Rise Above is to be commended for locating a quality color transfer of this
film. The restoration job is first rate, if far from perfect. There are still
scratches and edit errors, but compared to the dreadful Dracula, it's
like a brand new motion picture. The original Spanish soundtrack is also a
winner (even if it sounds like our hero is dubbed) and the English subtitles are
clear and occasionally hilarious in their literalness ("his acceptability
to his multitude of admirers appreciates no limits"). For tons of Full
Nelson freak show fun, Santo Contra la Hija de Frankenstein is a real
winner.

Santo en el Tesoro de Dracula: On the opposite end of the
entertainment spectrum entirely is this tired, trite entry into the continuing
Santo versus the various monsters of Movieland mentality. Everything that is
ludicrously luscious about Frankenstein is MIA in this boring neck biter bilge.
The main problem here is the set up. The first half of the movie unfortunately
forgets all about our man in tights and instead favors a near by the book
reworking of Bram Stoker's by now familiar tale. Instead of insane Mexicali
grappling or wonderfully warped diabolical dastardliness, we have to suffer
through another serving of that suave bloodsucker tormenting a couple of girls
until he is undone by a vampire hunter with "Van" as part of his
surname. And then when we enter back to present day, we get the stupidly vague
Black Hood who looks like the critical trumpeter from Sabado Gigante and
his non-descript plans for feloniousness. The whole treasure trek is just an
excuse to get old Drac back into the mix and then they drop the whole loot scoot
for a revamp (revamp—get it?) of the Dracula/Luisa/long lost love story.
In the end, Santo feels like an ancillary character is his own movie, just one
of the meddling bunch whom thwart Hoodie and Count Chocula, Scooby-Doo
style.

But as bad as the movie is, the print and image are worse. This is a
horribly fuzzy, faded monochrome transfer that makes the entire film look like
it was lensed through gauze and processed in a paella. There is very little
definition and even the close-ups reveal blurry edges and contrasts. Nothing is
black and white here—it's all shades of light gray. And when we have the
unfortunate luck of witnessing a scene in daylight or with heavy lighting
effects, we experience the snow blindness version of El Santo. Equally muffled
is the soundtrack. Thankfully, the movie is in the original Spanish, so unless
you're cribbing for your midterm in Español, you'll be more than satisfied
with the English subtitles. Not that there is much verbal wit or intrigue to
experience here.

More than Frankenstein, Dracula is stagy costumed crud melded
to random scenes of faux fighting and indecipherable intrigue to equal
unsatisfying Santo. Our hero is only a secondary character here. We spend more
time with his retarded comic relief Perico or watching Black Head's beefy son
work out than witnessing superhuman suplex goodness. Santo en el Tesoro de
Dracula may have sounded like a good idea at the time, but in the execution
it's too little of our Mexican megastar and too much Transylvanian time travel
trash.

Both DVDs here come with exactly the same set of extras, all of which are
basically sales and merchandising opportunities for Rise Above Entertainment
(have to wonder if Henry Rollins is an El Santo fan). The trailers included are
not for the movie presented, but instead we get one for a modern El Santo
film (obviously starring his son, El Hijo de Santo) with a really lame
extraterrestrial storyline and equally laughable Apple IIe CGI effects. The
other is for an onscreen pairing of Santo and his occasional associate, the Blue
Demon. The Best of El Santo is really just a set of clips for the Rise Above
series set to some silly music. Each DVD contains very detailed liner notes
about the films offered, providing plot overviews and behind the scenes making
of material. The Rise Above trailers section is just an ad for the Rise Above
website link and the El Santo photo gallery is an all too short summary of
publicity and personal stills from the career of this Central American hero.
Together, the two films and DVD presentations cancel each other out, resulting
in a wash for a recommendation. Anyone interested in Santo and his stardom
should seek out Frankenstein, if just to get a taste of this cultural icon in
action. It's feared, however, that using these two movies to represent the
cinematic career of this God-like man/mauler will result in a lot of "so
whats" from casual or non-fans. El Santo became a symbol of righteousness
and power for some reason. Neither film really does the mythology justice.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Which leads to the chief complaint here. Obviously, due to rights issues and
limited resources, Rise Above cannot go out and recruit the top of the line El
Santo movies to characterize its entry into the Mexican wrestling film genre.
Like gradients of hot saucy spiciness, it's hard to imagine what the
representative El Santo movie would be. Frankenstein comes close, but
fumbles around so aimlessly in its last half of the second and third acts that
the wonderful setup seemed hardly worth it. Dracula is a fiasco of magnificent
proportions, a movie so lost in its science/supposed literary scare plotting it
drowns under the poor execution of both. Perhaps more Black Hood would do a
better job of explaining the Santo sainthood to an audience already dumbfounded
that a grappler in a mask could so enthrall an entire nation (albeit, a
definitely third world one). At least with a Moriarity to his singlet Sherlock
Holmes, Santo becomes proactive, doing the crime fighting he is so
hypothetically famous for. Without that criminal mastermind, we get a silver
faced figurehead who stands around and waits for stuff to affect him directly
before taking action. Sure, the wrestling is pretty cool in its un-glamorized,
unpolished puff and stuff. But neither Frankenstein nor Dracula,
fictional legends unto themselves, help fully explain the adoration, the
worship, the unswerving devotion to El Santo and his canon of craziness. Rise
Above would be best advised to locate better examples of this media darling's
derring-do, or risk losing an audience already eager to see what all the fiesta
fuss is about.

Closing Statement

So who is America's El Santo? Who do we blindly follow in any and all aspects
of their multi-media careers. Madonna seems like a sound choice; after all, she
is well known for her wrestling matches (albeit between the sheets) and has
rabid retailers eagerly awaiting her latest CD/DVD/VHS/concert/magazine cover.
But alas, our Italian temptress is far from the crime fighter our spandexed
Spaniard is. More like a crime initiator, be it felonies or suicides. A fellow
Hispanic, Ms. Jennifer Lopez, could and would make a pretty decent La Santa,
considering that she's got the barrel aspect of the physique down pat (and down
below in bootyville, comprende?). She is also spawning her media seed all over
the map, be it in less than likeable videos, rote movies, and/or tabloid pics of
her necking with Benjamin A. But then again, there's not much about the Selena
siren that screams "personal integrity" and "passion for the less
fortunate." Hulk Hogan took a shot at it in the mid-'80s, even though he
had no real talent to speak of. As a matter of fact, he made the Mexican masked
man seem downright Shakespearean by comparison. Perhaps the USA's best shot at a
mega-merchandised cultural superhero already came and went, leaving his
impression not only on film, but on sport and the media as well. No, we are not
talking about Michael Jordan or Shaquille O'Neal. They still have their chance.
But alas, "classy" Freddie Blassie left us this year. If ever there
was a potential Santo for a misguided superpower, it was this specimen of human
specialness. Too bad he is now bashing all the pencil necked geeks in heaven and
we are left holding the decent Santo Contra la Hija de Frankenstein and
the decrepit Santo En El Tesoro De Dracula as guides to potential
greatness. A DVD called The King of Men vs. The King of Monsters sounds
pretty good right about now.

The Verdict

El Santo in all his silver masked glory is found not guilty and is free to
go. Santo Contra la Hija de Frankenstein is also acquitted of all charges
and released on its own recognizance. Santo En El Tesoro De Dracula is
found guilty of being a boring, badly transferred travesty and is sentenced to
20 years of hard labor in the secret caves of Freda Frankenstein. Rise Above is
admonished by the Court to be more careful in their selection of El Santo titles
to release on DVD.